3 Ways to Sync Your MS Office Documents to the Cloud

This is a post by Bobby Travis, who wrote with me at 40Tech from 2009 through 2012. Bobby has since moved on to bigger and better things, but I've left all of his great contributions up on the site. - Evan

Web based office suites are great – and getting better all the time – but none of them can really top the formatting capabilities and ability to work without an internet connection that comes from Microsoft Office. Still, we are a world heading for the proverbial Cloud, and we often find ourselves with the need to easily share and collaborate on documents over great distances. The Make Tech Easier blog took the time to lay out three ways to get that done, using Google Docs, Zoho, and, of course, the relatively new Office Live.

The long and the short of it is this:

The OffiSync add-in for Microsoft Office will give you full sync with Google Docs, including real time collaboration, open from and save to Google Docs, and more. Works with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint from 2003 to 2010 suites.

The Zoho Writer add-in for MS Office connects Word and Excel to Zoho Writer and Sheet, but only for .doc and .xls files.

Skydrive is Microsoft’s new virtual space offering (25GB, but with a few caveats, mostly related to file size). It is also where Microsoft’s new online/cut down version of the Office Suite saves your documents. Office 2010 is already fully integrated with Office Live and Skydrive. Earlier versions will simply have to upload files – no syncing, but this is the service that is most likely to preserve the bulk of your formatting. Upload via your Windows Live account.

Bobby isn't 40-something, but is a strong supporter of the Grown-up Geek kind. He's a loving husband and father first, but is also a freelance writer, productivity nut, operatically trained singer, and (not-so) closet geek.
Check out his random thoughts, wackiness, and Instagram pics on Tumblr, Twitter, or Google+-- or just head over to bobby-travis.com.

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